SGS Notes: You may have guessed by now that one of my favorite commentators is Jeff Nielson, Senior Precious Metals Analyst for BullionBulls Canada. I'm featuring several of his articles this week because he has always been so 'spot on' with regard to this market…and I love how well he is able to articulate these concepts so that anybody can understand without having their eyes gloss over!

How Your Bank Account Could DisappearJeff Nielson

On the same morning we hear that ¼ of Wall Street executives think that fraud is a necessary part of "doing business" in the financial sector, we hear of a second "MF Global". The U.S.'s so-called regulators are now reporting that somewhere around $220 million in customer funds is "missing" at a financial institution known as PFGBest; once again closing the barn door after all the cows have run off.

With at least one out of every four bankers at U.S. Big Banks (that's how many admitted to being crooks in the survey) thinking that stealing is part of their job descriptions, it's very important for people to realize how little protection there now is between these thieves and your bank accounts. Based on the writing of a number of other individuals with more expertise in these markets, it is apparently an inherently fraudulent banking process known as "rehypothecation" which is allowing the mass-plundering of accounts at U.S. financial institutions, with other Western financial regulatory authorities also rubber-stamping this relatively new form of bankster crime.

Rehypothecation is a heinous practice permitted by the pretend-regulators of Western markets, where financial institutions are allowed to pledge their clients' funds as collateral to cover their own gambling debts. I say "inherently fraudulent" since few of the clients of these financial institutions would ever knowingly enter into contracts with these gambling-addicts where their cash could be used to cover their bankers' gambling debts.

Instead, what is happening here is that the rehypothecation clauses are being buried in the "small print" of these contracts and (obviously) never properly explained to these clients: seemingly textbook fraudulent misrepresentation. The only "advantage" to a client into entering into such a contract is a slight reduction in fees, or slightly improved interest rate - certainly not near enough to entice people into risking some near-100% loss insuring someone else's gambling debts.

So we have our "regulators" (i.e. the only protectors of our funds in the hands of these admitted thieves) giving these fraud-factories the green light to enter into these inherently fraudulent contracts, putting any/all funds of these clients in permanent jeopardy. Thus it's important to outline how this could happen with ordinary bank accounts.

First it must be noted that the Corporate Media (loyal friends of the Big Banks) are referring to this as a "brokerage" problem. Understand that a brokerage is nothing but a legal "bookie", an entity which takes (and makes) bets, and which must hold the funds of its "customers" in order to do business. Apparently the principal difference now between a "legal" bookie and an "illegal" bookie is that an illegal bookie is much less likely to use his customers' funds to cover his own bad bets.

What people must also understand is that the world's biggest bookies, indeed, the biggest bookies in the history of the world are the Big Banks themselves (specifically U.S. Big Banks). Most of their gambling is done in their own, rigged casino: the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives market.

Note that you won't see that number quoted by the Corporate Media (any longer). As concern about the size of the bankers' mountain of bets grew; the bankers asked the Master Bookie - the Bank for International Settlements - to change the "definition" of this market, and instantly the derivatives market shrunk to 1/3rd its former size.

As many know, the BIS is known as "the central bank for central banks". What a smaller number of people know is that this is the world's great money-laundering vehicle, an entity created just before World War II specifically to allow Western industrialists to continue to do a vast amount of business with Adolph Hitler. In other words, it's not exactly a reliable source for information. So I choose to use the same numbers that the banksters previously used themselves, before they started getting defensive about the insane amounts of their gambling.

We are being led to believe by the Corporate Media (another unreliable source) that this problem is only a risk for all individuals with "brokerage" accounts, however as we piece together all the pieces of the puzzle (already revealed) this is what we see before us:
1) Our banking regulators knowingly allow financial institutions to engage in recklessly misleading (if not outright fraudulent) contracts with their clients, through the use of complex "small print" in their account contracts with clients.
2) The three largest U.S. "banks" by deposit (JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup) have made bets in their own rigged casino, which total well in excess of $100 trillion, an amount which completely dwarfs their total, combined deposits (and assets).
3) A large portion of those bets occur in the $60+ trillion credit default swap market. Pay-outs in these markets can (and do) exceed 300 times the amount of the original bet. It is bets in this market which "blew up" AIG, requiring more than $150 billion in immediate government aid.
4) Following the Crash of '08; these same banks mooched a package of hand-outs, tax-breaks and "guarantees" (i.e. future hand-outs) from the Bush regime in excess of $15 trillion, the last time their gambling debts went bad on them - and all of these banks have been allowed to dramatically increase the total amount of their gambling since then.
5) It would take only a minor change in the gambling contracts in which these bankers engage to allow their creditors to seize funds out of ordinary bank accounts.
6) The existing language for the bank accounts of these U.S. banks is possibly already so vague (and prejudicial to clients) that it would allow these banks to reinterpret the terms of these bank accounts - and allow rehypothecation to be used to rob the holders of ordinary bank accounts, people who themselves make no "bets" in markets whatsoever. Alternately, customers could be blitzed with an offer for "new and improved" bank accounts, where terms allowing rehypothecation are slipped into the contract, with the banks knowing that the "regulators" will do nothing to warn account-holders of the gigantic risk they are taking.

The same media apologists who would scoff at this suggestion are the same shills who claimed "there could never be another MF Global". Meanwhile we have the biggest gambler of them all, JP Morgan, just confessing to having made more of these bad bets - which continue growing larger by the $billion.

When we add-in the fact that the U.S.'s mark-to-fraud accounting rules mean that these banks are easily able to hide the level of their insolvency, the pretend-regulators apparently don't have the slightest idea of the level of risk to which account-holders are being exposed. This is the charitable explanation for these facts. The alternative interpretation is that these "regulators" are direct accomplices of the criminal banking cabal.

I have consistently referred to the U.S. financial sector as a "crime syndicate" for several years now, often drawing considerable criticism for supposedly hyperbolic rhetoric. Obviously I have been completely vindicated here. One quarter of these bankers are now confessed thieves. The pretend-regulators (notably the SEC and CFTC) on a daily basis rubber-stamp the banksters' acts of fraud (where they are caught red-handed) - handing out totally trivial fines, and not even requiring these thieves to admit their guilt.

If there are any substantive differences between how the U.S. financial sector is allowed to operate versus any generic definition of a "crime syndicate", it would be enlightening to hear what those (supposed) differences are. And now these thieves are closer than ever to simply reaching into peoples' bank accounts and grabbing every dollar they can steal.

The principal reason why I and others have urged people to convert their banker-paper to gold and silver in the past was the 1,000 year track-record of these bankers' paper, fiat currencies always going to zero (through the bankers recklessly diluting these currencies via over-printing). However, we can add to that a much more basic reason: every ounce of gold and silver which you purchase (and store in your own home "safe" or other secure location) is wealth which cannot be stolen by the banking crime syndicate. This is what commentators are really referring to when they speak of "counterparty risk": placing your future financial security in someone else's hands.

What the large financial institutions of the 21st century have taught us (through the cruel "lessons" of their serial crimes) is that there is no one in the world whom you can trust less with your money than a banker.

SGS Notes: We're sending out our newsletter mid-week this issue because there is so much going on right now we want you to be aware of. The JP Morgan news is HUGE… so we are featuring various articles this week about that and the implications for all of us.

There are also things happening in the Eurozone and in Greece that will affect us all dramatically. Hold on to your seats, the ride is about to get bumpy. We're looking for the end of the metals manipulation when physical silver prices detach from the ETC prices… should be soon. We saw silver spot dip below $27 this week, and, looking at the Gold/Silver ratio… it's up quite high - again. Remember: that ratio SHOULD be in the 16/1 range. Still a long way to go.

Dismal Metals Sentiment - Just What Bernanke OrderedJeff Lewis

Since the dramatic drops the silver market saw in May and September of last year, prices in the precious metals market have been suffering from an excess of negative sentiment. This adverse perception is weighing on metal prices and keeping investor demand at bay.

Furthermore, although investors have continued to buy physical silver, the overall quantity being purchased has declined significantly, resulting in reduced support for the metal's price.
Nevertheless, the supply of silver is naturally limited by the quantity existing in the Earth's crust, despite ever growing industrial applications for the metal and rising price inflation. This key combination of factors still provides a strong fundamental basis for continuing to hold silver over the long term.

Could Weak Silver Sentiment be Conveniently Manufactured by Central Bankers?
Interestingly, this depressed silver market sentiment picture seems to be the perfect political tool needed during a U.S. election year to lend much needed psychological support to an ever weakening U.S. Dollar in terms of its ability to purchase goods and services.

Keeping silver and other precious metal prices low by depressing market sentiment, and perhaps even engaging in covert market intervention, seems suspiciously convenient after such an excessive amount of liquidity has already been pumped into the U.S. monetary system by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank's highly controversial quantitative easing measures promoted by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

In addition, given the high amount of liquidity the European Central Bank needed to inject to deal with the debt troubled Eurozone countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal, the increasingly obvious end result will be higher consumer price inflation, despite ongoing denials by central bank and government officials.

More QE Measures Likely as U.S. Economy Languishes in Election Year
Bearish for the Dollar, but very bullish for hard precious metal currencies like silver, is the view among many market participants that further rounds of quantitative easing or QE measures by the Fed are still practically a given during this election year to help lend support to a stubbornly struggling U.S. economy.

Nevertheless, allowing metals to trade higher based on their strong fundamentals would severely dampen the U.S. central bankers' ability to overtly increase the money supply in a substantial way.
EU Moves Toward Ratifying ESM to Provide More Permanent Bailout Mechanism
Another related development is that the European Stability Mechanism or ESM is expected to be ratified by July of this year, provided that enough of the 17 Eurozone member states approve of the bailout system to represent ninety percent of its capital commitments.

This new EU rescue program is expected to permanently replace the existing temporary European Financial Stability Facility within the Eurozone, thereby making meta-government bailouts an ongoing feature of the Eurozone's economy.

As in the United States, a reasonable person can only expect more liquidity increasing measures will soon also follow in the EU, thereby making an even stronger case for continuing to hold and accumulate precious metals like silver.

Does Jamie Dimon's Problem Actually Reside in SILVER DERIVATIVES?

Facts are facts. Since May 7th the price of silver has been mercifully driven down below $30 and on May 10th Jamie Dimon announced a $2B derivative loss. The price of silver is continuing to be driven down which in my mind means only one thing...JPM is losing the physical silver game and having to drive the price lower to get their hands on physical at a price that would reduce their overall losses. Never mind that the paper silver short will increase...this is now a physical game.
A clue lies in the COMEX data that shows that silver is in backwardization!